Kallas geeft verantwoording bij controle EU-jaarrekening door Rekenkamer (en)

maandag 20 november 2006

SPEECH/06/709

Siim Kallas

Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Administrative Affairs, Audit and Anti-Fraud

Hearing in the presence of Members of the European Court of Auditors – 2005 budget discharge

COCOBU

Brussels, 20th November 2006

Following the presentations of the Annual Report of the Court of Auditors to COCOBU, ECOFIN and the Plenary, I have been looking forward to this chance for a more in depth discussion.

Since I've already had these opportunities to react, I would only make three brief introductory remarks:

First, I want to repeat that the Commission recognises that it makes mistakes and that system weaknesses persist. We will correct the errors detected by the Court. And I mentioned in the Parliamentary Plenary, we also find individual cases of suspected fraud. We will address these points and take further actions to correct system weakness. That leads me to my second point:

The Commission remains fully committed to implementing the Action Plan for an Integrated Internal Control Framework. It is an ambitious plan, but overall, the state of progress is satisfactory. We'll submit a formal progress report in January, but let me share a few early indicators of progress at this stage:

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    We have made progress in harmonising the presentation of internal control strategies and demonstrate how DGs will gain assurance from these (Action 3),
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    We're enhancing co-operation with Supreme Audit Institutions by providing them with accounting data. On Friday, for instance, I was in Bonn to discuss the control of EU funds with the German "Bundesrechnungshof" and next months, all the European national audit offices will discuss this at their meeting in Warsaw (Action 8),
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    We're improving our overview and quality of ex post audits within the ABAC system (Action 9).
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    We've started work to calculate the cost of controls (Action 10)
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    Finally, on the role of Member states, in providing additional assurance (Action 5), tomorrow's trialogue on the Financial Regulation will hopefully conclude that Member states should be obliged to produce an annual summary of the available audits and declarations in relation to funds in shared management. I know this is less than the Parliament and the Commission had proposed, but I do believe it represents a breakthrough. And I hope the further example of the Netherlands, and the initiative announced just today by the Economic Secretary of the UK Treasury, will be an inspiration to others.

My third and final remark is simply to recall a point made by the rapporteur, and some honourable members during the plenary debate. The Commission would welcome greater emphasis on value-for-money audits in evaluating the Commission’s efforts, As I said in Plenary, this would not give the Commission an easier ride, and it would give all of us a more relevant ride!

I am ready to answer your questions.

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